July 15, 2015 — The number of scheduled observer trips aboard Cape Ann lobster boats and others throughout Massachusetts have fallen off dramatically since the contentious Gloucester meeting last month where NOAA outlined plans to increase observer coverage for the Northeast lobster fishery.
Beth Casoni, executive director of the Scituate-based Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, said her discussions with the association’s membership revealed a significant drop in the number of lobstermen being contacted to schedule observer coverage on a future trip.
“I’ve been asking every fisherman from everywhere whether they’re getting called like before and they’re all telling me the same thing, that it’s pretty quiet,” Casoni said. “We’re pretty pleased with that.”
The same is true around Cape Ann, according to Arthur “Sooky” Sawyer, longtime Gloucester fisherman and lobsterman who now serves as the president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association.
“There hasn’t been anyone contacted around here since the meeting,” Sawyer said.
The June 4 meeting at NOAA’s regional headquarters in the Blackburn Industrial Park provided the first glimpse of the rabid opposition among lobstermen to expanding the Northeast Fisheries Observer Program throughout the New England lobstering industry and as far down the East Coast as Maryland.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times